Good Company
by Fibre Optic
Summary: Marauders-era. Sirius can have platonic friendships with girls, too.


_Because I wanted to. I imagine Sirius and his friend here in sixth year. I may write more little one-shots like this, without it devolving into romance because I think there's enough of that around. If you enjoyed, great, please let me know why. If you didn't, even greater, **please** let me know why!_

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"So, you doing anything at the weekend?"

I didn't look up from my parchment as I replied blandly, "Studying."

"Ah, of course."

"Keep it to yourself, please," I said as I scribbled out another sentence on the importance of understanding ancient runes. "I already know what you're going to be doing."

Sirius was grinning, but I didn't satisfy the urge to look at him. I'd been given the entire two weeks of Easter break to finish this essay; classes started back tomorrow and I hadn't even started until this evening. Priorities, you know?

"I have no idea how you can write for so long," he said.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him stretch both elbows across the mahogany table and rest his chin in the small gap between them. His dark eyes flickered from my half-filled parchment to my face, until finally I put my quill down and looked at him. "What?" I said flatly.

"What?" he repeated, innocently.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" I demanded, picking up my quill and jabbing the tip in his direction. "It's distracting. If I could get this done with irritating background noise, I'd be in my common room instead of the library, wouldn't I?"

He straightened up, settling his chin in one hand and shrugging one shoulder. "Sorry," he said. I gave him a withering look, and he suppressed a smirk. He wasn't sorry.

Dipping my quill in ink, I hesitated a moment as I tried to remember where exactly I was in the essay, when his next aural assault began. A steady, rhythmic tapping.

Gritting my teeth, I stared at the parchment in front of me until the words blurred together and became meaningless. I blinked, turning my attention to the ink pot that acted as a paperweight, holding down the curling top of my parchment.

_Tap, tap, tap – tap tap. Tap, tap, tap – tap tap. _

"What is _wrong_ with you?" I snapped, throwing my quill down for a second time and cursing quietly when it rolled down the page, leaving a trail of dark blue ink in its wake. I glared at him from beneath my eyelashes as I stood, shoving the chair behind me with a screech. "Look what you made me do! I'm going to have to start all over again." I gestured at the parchment, and he rolled his eyes.

"Oh no," he said sarcastically. "A witch and a wizard in a magical library have encountered some spilled ink – whatever shall we do?"

I cringed a little, because he was of course right. Sometimes being muggle born just didn't work in my favour. Old habits died hard. Still, the glower I fixed him with was enough to bring a genuinely apologetic look onto his face. With a loud and dramatic sigh, he reached into his robes and withdrew his wand, which he waved almost nonchalantly above the parchment. The small blots of ink shrank almost immediately, until they disappeared from the yellowed page.

"See?" he said, pocketing his wand. "Fixed."

Because the large clock on the wall behind him told me it was nearly 10pm, and because we would have to retreat to our separate common rooms after this, I huffed a sigh and sat back down, much to Sirius's delight.

"Don't get too excited," I warned, pointing to him with the end of my quill. "I have to get up early tomorrow to hand this in. I'm not staying down late with you."

He sucked in his lower lip and raised an eyebrow, but shrugged amiably all the same. "Hogsmeade trip in another three weeks. Feel like coming out with me and the others?"

"Sure thing," I said, just to quieten him.

It worked, and for the next ten minutes the only sound in the library was the scratching of my quill against parchment. The flickering candles that hung suspended in the air above us cast eerie shadows along the high shelves surrounding our table, and when I finally set down my quill and shoved my things into my bag, I think both of us were glad to go, though probably more out of boredom on Sirius' part. The boy just couldn't sit still, and it was a testament to our friendship that he actually tried to for the sake of keeping me company.

As we exited the library, we automatically took the separate turns towards our respective common rooms. Before letting him walk his pretty ass down that corridor, I made sure to offer him a last whack across the back of the head.

He spun to look at me, eyebrows raised and that stupid grin on his face. He flipped me the finger, and I laughed as I walked backwards down the corridor. "I'll see you tomorrow, Fido."

"Only if I want you to, Ells. Only if I want you to." He winked before turning away, and I shook my head and did the same.

"_If you were any other girl, I would totally want to sleep with you,"_ he'd once told me with great sincerity. I just shook my head and punched him hard in the arm, and that was the last time that either of us acknowledged or questioned our platonic friendship.

I liked to call it a mutual understanding. He liked to call it a bromance, and included me in his outings with James, Remus, and Peter as often as was convenient for both of us. I had friends in my own house that I liked to sit with at meal times and in classes, and I had little interest in Quidditch. When people gave us strange looks as we walked together, it was with good reason. We hadn't much more than a similar sense of sarcasm and humour in common - we weren't even in the same house. We had separate groups of friends who knew less about us than we knew about each other, and it was simply down to an amount of trust and respect that we held for each other. The fact that most didn't understand it was irrelevant.

Sirius and I clicked well, and I couldn't see anything ever changing that.


End file.
